UNSTOPPABLE DRIVE-IN X-ASPERATES NEIGHBORS

Eric Zorn, Chicago TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Imagine. People here actually thought a little thing like a U.S. Supreme Court decision would get the passion out of their local passion pit.

But the seamy reality of ''Beverly Hills Exposed'' defiantly flickering on the screen at the Sunset Drive-In theater last weekend, to be followed this weekend by ''Naked Scents,'' has convinced them otherwise.

''The theater owners,'' said Curtis Johnson, who has a spectacular view of hard-core hijinks out the back window of his house, ''have no respect for the law, or anybody.''

For three years the controversy sizzled, as hot as the celluloid fare that angry residents were unwillingly seeing from their backyards. Sheriff`s deputies tramped through tall grasses to gather evidence that the screen, in an unincorporated area just south of the Rockford city limits, was visible from public property; the Winnebago County state`s attorney`s office regularly hauled theater managers into court; and neighbors met in one another`s houses to fulminate at the filth.

Finally, on March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a 1984 county ordinance that requires theaters to pledge not to show films depicting sexual activity if their screens can be seen from private residences or public streets.

The community`s sigh of relief turned to a sharp intake of breath when, less than two weeks after the high court decision, the aging Sunset blithely commenced its fourth season showing films that leave nothing to the imagination.

''I can`t believe it,'' said Stan Muraski, whose panoramic view from his back yard is blighted during the summer by the easily seen indelicacies of triple-X movies. ''What does it take to stop them?''

Sheriff`s deputies were out once again last weekend making note of what they could see from homes, streets and a nearby elementary school. They filed a report with the state`s attorney`s office, which will soon file a report to a three-member county board commission in charge of outdoor theaters, which will in turn report to the county board, which may, in turn, find the Sunset Drive-In in violation of the ordinance and suspend its license.

As long as these wheels of justice continue to turn, so do the reels of film at the Sunset. It has been allowed to operate under various temporary court orders as the case rolls along, and authorities say they are unable to act until this year`s license is actually revoked or denied by the county board.

The Sunset is an authentic relic, its car humps littered with weeds and its low-slung concession building covered with flakes of peeling, baby-blue and white paint.

The screen more or less faces Samuelson Road, but it`s on low ground and the view of passing motorists is blocked by the thicket of trees that surrounds the acreage. But it`s a hilly area, and those who built their homes on high ground were in for a shock when the theater changed hands in 1983.

''They used to show decent movies,'' said Johnson`s wife, Georgia, who grew up in the neighborhood and now must make sure all the shades are down at night lest her children, ages 6 and 8, get an early education.

''We kept our kids inside at night and stayed home the whole first summer,'' said Sandra Muraski. ''We didn`t even want to bring a baby-sitter up here and expose her to it.''

''I had a very difficult talk with the kids,'' said Stan Muraski. ''They were about 10 years old. I had to tell them, `Adults don`t really do stuff like that. Or if they do, they don`t let anyone film it.` ''

Muraski and others in the vicinity say that area youths frequently trespass on their property and skulk around the neighborhood to get a choice view of the movies that, after all, you don`t have to hear to enjoy.

Authorities raided the Sunset almost instantly after it began showing adult movies, shutting it down and arresting the manager and projectionist on obscenity charges. Southland News Co., a Kentucky-based business that owns the Sunset and other theaters, won a restraining order in federal court that allowed the show to go on.

Winnebago County Sheriff Donald Gasparini declared, ''Things that occur in a place like Las Vegas should not go on in Rockford.''

Gasparini`s deputies arrested the theater manager four nights in a row in April, 1984, until a U.S. District Court judge told him to cut it out. One of the trials resulting from these raids ended in a mistrial after a local minister paraded into court with anti-porn placards bearing such slogans as

''Don`t License Lust.'' Another ended with a jury of seven men and five women finding ''Deep Throat'' not obscene, and yet another resulted in a 140- day jail sentence for the theater owner.

In order to obscure the images on the screen, the theater then installed high-intensity lights shining outward at surrounding houses. They were not totally effective and served mostly to enrage those who found themselves living in the harsh glare.

A nearby real estate developer, who had purchased a large tract of land directly to the east of the Sunset before the explicit movies began, sued the theater, charging that the movies, the lights and trespassers had made his property ''unfit for comfortable and respectable occupation.'' He lost.

Stymied, Winnebago County wrote an outdoor theater ordinance very closely patterned after a 1979 Cook County ordinance aimed at the Starview Drive-In near Elgin. The U.S. Supreme Court had refused in 1982 to hear the Starview`s appeal of the ordinance, effectively upholding it.

The Starview Drive-In, now surrounded by 3,000 trees, complies with the ordinance and continues to show adult films.

There is some disagreement in legal circles whether the Supreme Court`s decision in the Cook County case and its recent decision in the Rockford case conflict with a 1975 high court ruling that held a Jacksonville, Fla., drive- in ordinance unconstitutional.

In that case, the justices suggested that ''the burden normally falls upon the viewer'' to avert his eyes from objectionable material.

''But you just can`t avoid it,'' said Stan Muraski. ''It`s just right there. If they want to show that stuff indoors, fine. That`s their right. But the question is where do their rights leave off and mine begin?''